The John Lennon advert for the Citroën DS3 is total bollocks on so many levels it’s difficult to know where to begin.
Let’s start with the fact that John Lennon’s voice is totally out of sync with the picture. Why? If he was saying something he’d clearly never said, such as “I think Citroëns are great”, you could understand why they needed to get an actor to do an impression, then dub it over footage of Lennon. But he’s actually saying something that sounds plausibly like something he actually would say. So the fact that the audio doesn’t correspond to the picture, and the way the picture jumps around in an effort to disguise the fact, is just stupid.
Secondly, is it actually Lennon speaking? If so, then obviously it’s exceedingly tacky to use a dead rock star’s voice to sell a shit French car. If it’s not him, then obviously it’s exceedingly tacky to get a drawling Scouser to do an impression of a rock star’s voice in order to sell a shit French car.
Thirdly, the concept is completely flawed. The slogan, and the gist of what the bespectacled Imagine crooner is saying, is that we need to look forward, rather than backward. That nostalgia is rubbish. The slogan for the DS3 (spotted also on billboards) is “anti-retro”. So what better way to get this message across than to use some 40-year-old footage of a dead bloke? Is this too clever by half, or is it just complete shit?
Rhetorical question. It’s obviously complete shit.